Atlanta works on plan for evacuation, gas crisis

The recent gas crisis put Atlanta’s efforts for evacuation planning in a new light.

Officials discussing the plan at the Atlanta Regional Commission this week realized they’d better remember what happened in September and October, when long lines formed as panicked drivers looked for gas.

“One of the things we haven’t thought about is what if every citizen in Atlanta went and filled up at the same time,” said Tad Leithead, a member of the Atlanta Regional Commission. “We’re not prepared for that.”

The ARC is spearheading efforts to draw up an evacuation plan in case of a metro emergency. They hope it will replace a patchwork of plans drawn up by individual jurisdictions. Parts of it include how to set up road networks and evacuation routes and manage traffic, and predicting where people will go, or if they’ll go, when given the order to evacuate.

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, also a member of the ARC board, said the region needed a plan to conserve and manage the gas supplies in such an event. In the absence of such a plan, she said, when gas supplies ran low, drivers made them run lower by topping off their tanks.

The ARC is working on the evacuation plan with the Georgia Emergency Management Agency and Atlanta-Fulton County Emergency Management Agency, as well as county fire chiefs or emergency management officials. The consultants for Beck Disaster Recovery of Hickory, N.C. also are working with them.